applications of science, or at least to that portion of theoretical
science which is necessary to those who make such applications. In vain
will some innate propensity raise the mind towards the loftier spheres
of the intellect; interest draws it down to the middle zone. There it
may develop all its energy and restless activity, there it may engender
all its wonders. These very Americans, who have not discovered one of
the general laws of mechanics, have introduced into navigation an engine
which changes the aspect of the world.

Assuredly I do not content that the democratic nations of our time are
destined to witness the extinction of the transcendent luminaries of
man's intelligence, nor even that no new lights will ever start into
existence. At the age at which the world has now arrived, and amongst so
many cultivated nations, perpetually excited by the fever of productive
industry, the bonds which connect the different parts of science
together cannot fail to strike the observation; and the taste for
practical science itself, if it be enlightened, ought to lead men not to
neglect theory. In the midst of such numberless attempted applications
of so many experiments, repeated every day, it is almost impossible that
general laws should not frequently be brought to light; so that great
discoveries would be frequent, though great inventors be rare. I
believe, moreover, in the high calling of scientific minds. If the
democratic principle does not, on the one hand, induce men to cultivate
science for its own sake, on the other it enormously increases the
number of those who do cultivate it. Nor is it credible that, from
amongst so great a multitude no speculative genius should from time to
time arise, inflamed by the love of truth alone. Such a one, we may be
sure, would dive into the deepest mysteries of nature, whatever be
the spirit of his country or his age. He requires no assistance in his
course--enough that he be not checked in it.